


Derek the Unfriendly Ghost

by mirrorkill



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Turned Into a Ghost, F/M, Gen, Ghost Derek Hale, Ghosts, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirrorkill/pseuds/mirrorkill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has to sell the house on Granger Street to keep his job. But no matter what he does, no one will buy it. Everything goes fine until he has to confess the reason why it's been on the market so long: it's haunted.</p><p>Determined to keep his job, Stiles decides that the best thing to do is exorcise the ghost. But when the ghost starts to become a lot more real to Stiles, will he still be able to get rid of him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Derek the Unfriendly Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> ♥ Unbeta'd (the challenge closes in under twenty-something hours, my betas are forever amazing but they're not inhuman supergods) so proceed at your own risk, thank you! :)  
> ♥ I did not mark it Major Character Death even though Derek is dead in this story (proceed at your own risk) mostly because Derek's pretty much alive. Just dead. Did I mention you need to proceed at your own risk?  
> ♥ I don't know a lot about being a realtor in California, but please proceed - at your own risk - under the assumption that Bobby Finstock would Not Run An Estates Agency Correctly Anyway, thank you. :)  
> ♥ Warning for bad language.  
> ♥ Posted for TEAM-ARGENT! @ beacon-hills.livejournal.com for the BEACON HILLS BINGO BANG. Who even came up with this ridiculous time-sensitive challenge? (Wait, we did? *headdesks*) COME JOIN US, WE HAVE COOKIES.

Stiles loses the sale as soon as he tells the potential clients that the house is haunted.

The couple don't run out of the door screaming, but he knows the signs of losing a sale: the man and woman start edging looks at each other, one of them taps a pen uncertainly against the table, they don't ask for further clarification when Stiles mentions the shared driveway. When they _thanks but no thanks_ him, Stiles just nods politely and watches them go with a sigh.

Damn Californian property laws and their full-disclosure sub-clauses, Stiles thinks. No, damn _Erica_ for asking for clarification when the current owner muttered about the problem of dead tenants refusing to _stay_ dead. Plausible deniability on the Casper situation going on at 1042 Granger Street would make selling that place a _whole_ lot easier.

Stiles slinks back to the store-front _Finstock Estates_ office without even deviating by his favorite coffee shop. Which apparently speaks volumes, because as soon as he walks through the door without the tell-tale red _Cora's Coffee!_ cup in his hand, Erica's instantly on her feet.

"Oh, honey," Erica breathes.  "Not again."

Stiles just sinks into her arms, resting his head on her shoulder and resisting the urge to cry.

"I thought you delinquents knew my rule about no hanky-panky in the office," Finstock blares, striding into the main office with a vaguely confused expression on his face. Which is kind of his default expression, to be fair.

"Oh, please," Erica says. "Sex sells."

Finstock tilts his head and looks contemplative for a second, before the confusion replaces it again. "How are we doing with the Granger Street house?" he asks.

Stiles makes a sound low in his throat to communicate his deep and utter woe.

Finstock squints. "You need to work on your sex sounds, Bilinski," he says before stalking back into his office. He slams the door, then a second later pokes his head back out. "And sell that house soon or you're all fired!"

"You're joking, right?" Erica says, smiling winningly at him.

Finstock glares. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

Erica and Stiles exchange a glance, unsure whether it's a trick question or not.

"Uh," Stiles says, squinting. "Yes?"

Finstock's eyebrows rise in unison.

"No?" Stiles guesses.

"Knew there was a brain in there somewhere, Bilinski," Finstock snarls, slamming the door again.

Erica's comforting fingers turn into claws, thankfully metaphorically, her fingertips pinching Stiles' shoulders tightly as she shoves him towards his desk. "He took a meeting from the bank this morning," she hisses. "Guess it didn't go well."

Stiles winces as she pushes him down into his seat, damn werewolves and not really knowing their own strength. "But he's joking about firing us, right?"

Erica looks over at Finstock's closed door, face pinched with worry.

"Let's not take the risk. Just sell the house so we don't find out. And the faster, the better," she says. "Laura's offered Boyd and me a spare room in the Hale mansion if I lose our apartment."

Stiles rubs his shoulders and glowers at her whiplash-fast change of mood miserably. Although he understands. He's only met Laura Hale a couple of times, after she turned Scott to save his life after a bad asthma attack off-pitch in their senior year at school, and next to Laura's temper, Erica is a pussycat. "What happened to the sexy comforting?"

"It went out of the window in horror of the thought of sleeping next door to _Peter Creepster Hale,_ " Erica says, sinking back into her chair and resuming looking over housing contracts.

Stiles sighs. His last Open House brought him three leads… and zero sales. If he doesn't want to concede defeat, he's gonna have to do it.

He's gonna have to call Lydia Whittemore.

#

The good points in calling Lydia: she's the best stager in the business, she's not bad to look at, and she's fast at what she does, so Stiles doesn't have to dally around in organizing an Open House.

The bad points in having to stoop so low include: Jackson picking up the phone when Stiles calls, Lydia giving him a quote which is 30% above her regular rates, and then a barrage of passive-aggressive snide comments while she sets up the house, _ground floor only, Stilinski, I need more warning than this and you're lucky I even have time for you._

She may, in fact, still be a little snippy at the fact that Stiles: a) knew for years that Jackson wanted to be a werewolf, b) knew personally that an Alpha werewolf lived in their town and c) Stiles might have sort of not let Lydia know either of these things. Leading to Jackson dragging Lydia halfway around the world and missing their graduation ceremony in order for him to be turned by an old British Alpha who had a few brain cells missing.

Well, it's not like any _sane_ werewolf would try to turn Jackson "I'm a douchebag" Whittemore, Stiles reasons. Laura probably wouldn't have given Jackson or Lydia the time of day, but Lydia resents not even being able to _try_ and persuade her. Stiles still tries to maintain that the bonding she and Jackson did on the trip probably stabilized Jackson's weirdly competitive drive into something a little more human, but he endures Lydia's passive-aggression with a hang-dog expression and a hundred (okay, three, but it feels like a hundred) trips to Starbucks.

He'd personally _much_ rather Cora's coffee, but until he sells this damn house, he doesn't deserve the delicious nectar of the gods that Cora Hale pimps. Besides, Cora doesn't deserve the hell that is Lydia's forty-eight syllable long coffee order.

Stiles wouldn't ordinarily say _he_ deserves the humiliation of having to stand in a busy queue and repeat it, several times in one morning, but Lydia knows how to hold a grudge, and Stiles is damn lucky to have her. Lydia really is the best house stager in California. She should be in Hollywood or the Hamptons or Beverly Hills, not trapped out here, but Jackson knocked her up a couple of years ago, and finally Stiles can see that Jackson's pathetic dick has been good for _something._

While Stiles likes thinking about dick as much as the next sexually frustrated equal-opportunist might be, there is something off-putting about the concept of Jackson having a penis. It's almost enough to put Stiles off his food for a while. Like, even _touching_ food. Oh god why, why does Stiles brain go to these awful places?

So of course that's when Lydia hands him a tube of pre-made cinnamon rolls ready to bake, hands him an invoice that Stiles would _swear_ is larger than he agreed to, and stalks out of the house without a backwards glance.

"Thank you," Stiles calls to her retreating back, "but what am I supposed to do with this?"

She doesn't turn around. When he chases after her, she streaks away, leaving him standing in the dust.

Stiles looks between the car and the tube of dough in his hand, nonplussed.

"You bake it."

Stiles whirls at the sound of the voice to see a stranger standing inside the house. Stiles frowns. Lydia's team left an hour ago so she could do the final touches, or so he thought. He must have been wrong. It's very Lydia to leave someone behind without telling them she's finished.

"Excuse me?" Stiles asks, but it's mostly because he's a little speechless and _excuse me_ is about the first thing that comes to mind. Because Lydia has immaculate taste in people, probably why she never agreed to date Stiles, and the stranger is… Well, pretty dang immaculate in Stiles' opinion. Tall, broad-shouldered, legs that go on for days, facial hair that Stiles wants to get a beard burn from like _really badly,_ and the stranger's eyes, holy fucking cow, all the greatest painters in the world _wished_ they could replicate that color on their palettes, hot damn.

"The cinnamon rolls," the stranger says. Cinnamon Rolls guy, Stiles mentally calls him, until he gets the guy's name. And maybe his number. And maybe his undying love until the end of days. "You bake them. It makes the house smell more homely."

"Oh," Stiles says, uselessly. He supposes it's okay to be speechless, when confronted with nothing less than human perfection. "Um. Thanks. I'll… put them in a cupboard and bake them closer to the time." Stiles beams unsteadily at Cinnamon Rolls guy and turns to do that.

Except he fails, because his fingers have turned to jello in the presence of someone who Stiles is probably going to crush on forever. Stiles has always been a hard and fast kind of guy. He wonders whether Cinnamon Rolls would like it hard and fast in bed — but no, that’s not helping him suavely open the damn cupboard.

"She doesn't want to let you sell this house," Cinnamon Rolls guy says.

Stiles frowns. "What do you mean? Who doesn't want me to sell it?" He looks over to where Cinnamon Rolls guy is casually leaning against the wall. "Or are you just anthropomorphizing my bad luck?"

Cinnamon Rolls guy looks at Stiles like he might have escaped from a secure facility. Stiles just shrugs back at him.

"There's a trick to opening it," Cinnamon Rolls guy says after a pause, obviously swallowing back what he wants to say, which is probably not gonna be something Stiles hasn't heard before. "You need to twist the handle to the left and push it in a little before tugging it." He must have moved closer; Stiles can feel a soft breath on the back of his neck. He resists the urge to shiver and does as he's told, pushing the handle in and letting out a startled exhale of a laugh when the instructions work. Huh. Cinnamon Rolls is a genius as _well_ as being hot like the freaking _sun_.

"Dude," Stiles says, excitedly, turning around to beam at Cinnamon Rolls guy, ready to express his full thanks, maybe offer a thankful blowjob, or at least a marriage proposal—

—but the kitchen is empty.

Cinnamon Rolls guy is gone.

#

The open house goes really well, even when Stiles forgets the Cinnamon Rolls are baking and he burns them. The burned smell doesn't put any of the milling couples off the property, and the icing distracts a couple of kids that have been dragged along, so it's not a total lose-lose situation. Stiles is damn lucky.

It would be a lie to say that Stiles didn't easily get distracted, but it's been a long while since it's been a _someone_ to distract him. After his crush on Lydia eventually faded with time, Stiles had picked up mild crushes here and there, but none of them lingered past an occasional fleeting thought.

Cinnamon Rolls guy has been gone nearly three hours and Stiles may or may not be putting together a shortlist of names for the kids they're going to adopt together.

Four of the couples don't even seem to notice that their rookie realtor has his heads firmly in the clouds (or firmly on a pair of soulful, cinnamon-colored eyes and bed-tousled hair and biceps that Stiles can easily picture trying to wrap his fingers around), which is incredible – Stiles leads them into the hall to give the legal parts of the explanation of the house's condition, and only one of the couples flee with pitiful excuses when Stiles mentions that the house is haunted.

Stiles is feeling very good about his prospects – right until a chill runs down his spine. Moments before the pretty chandelier hanging in the hall crashes down from the ceiling, narrowly missing decapitating one of the couples lingering to try and buy the property.

Needless to say: by the time Stiles has recovered from the shock himself, he's the only one left in the house.

Dammit. Godfreaking _dammit._ Stiles stares mournfully at the mess before shrugging. Even if the house isn't haunted, it's damn unlucky. After a perfunctory check around the house to make sure everyone has gone, he gets a dustpan and brush and starts sweeping up the shattered glass, trying to look at the bright side of things.

At least no one got hurt, so he's not getting sued. And the light fixture will probably looking better with a shade than a chandelier anyway.

The massive dent in the floor, as well as the dent in Stiles' calm, is going to be more difficult to smooth over. Stiles squints down at the dent, kneeling down by it. Maybe if he moves the rug Lydia put in the sitting room? But then if she sees he's moved it, she'll probably gut him.

"Did anyone get hurt?"

Stiles' head lurches up automatically at the sound of Cinnamon Rolls guy's voice and he smiles despite himself, even though he should be berating himself for assuming everyone was gone. "Only thing that got damaged was this floor," Stiles explains, gesturing at the damage. "And maybe my sanity, but the jury is continually out on whether that ever existed in the first place."

Cinnamon Rolls frowns at Stiles. Stiles continues to smile, used to getting frowned at when he speaks. "Okay," Cinnamon Rolls says, after a pause.

"Not a talker, huh?" Stiles climbs to his feet, dusting off the knees of his pants. "Bet Lydia likes that."

"Lydia?"

"Your boss?" Stiles says, squinting at Cinnamon Rolls and trying not to contemplate what the man's impressive shoulders might taste like, if Stiles was to spend an entire night licking them. "…. _not_ your boss?"

"I don't know any Lydia," Cinnamon Rolls says.

Now Stiles is the one frowning. "Then… are you in the house to buy it? Because I—"

"I don't want to buy this house," Cinnamon Rolls says.

Stiles opens his mouth to blurt out that the guy should leave then, but then he remembers he wants to marry Cinnamon Rolls and have a thousand kids with him, and telling him to leave would make that plan very difficult, so he shuts his mouth with a snap. "Why not?"

Cinnamon Rolls' _eye_ roll can probably be seen from space. "Because it's haunted," Cinnamon Rolls says, in the key of _duh._

"Right."

"Why do you want to sell this house so badly?" Cinnamon Rolls asks. "If no one wants to buy it when they hear it's haunted, maybe you should just leave it be."

"Believe me," Stiles huffs, "leaving things be is not in my nature. Besides, there's three other matters."

"Which are?"

"One, if I don't sell this house I'll lose my job. Two, I don't believe in ghosts."

Cinnamon Rolls frowns at him. "And the third?"

"I've vowed to myself that if I don't sell this house I can never have my favorite coffee again," Stiles says. "I've had a caffeine-withdrawal headache all morning, so this sale better be damn worth it."

Cinnamon Rolls stares at Stiles like he's lost his mind, which Stiles thinks is unfair, because it's normally people who _believe_ in ghosts who get glared at like that.

Stiles opens his mouth again to protest, when there's a loud crashing noise from upstairs. "Um," Stiles says. "Wind?" he hazards, as a guess. "I'm going up," he decides.

"Are you _crazy_?" Cinnamon Rolls looks quite distressed, but doesn't move from where he's standing in the middle of the hall. "The house is haunted."

Stiles doesn't believe in ghosts. He doesn't. He _doesn't._ It's probably just the wind, or a creaking floorboard. Empty houses are creepy and Lydia only staged the ground floor, not the upstairs rooms. They're empty, so they're bound to echo odd sounds.

Nope, Cinnamon Rolls is getting to him. The house is haunted. The owner told Erica so and Erica can hear lies. Oh, god, Stiles is going to die. Selling a house. _Beautiful._

"Probably," Stiles says, turning a speculative gaze to the stairs, wondering if he has to qualify that statement by actually going upstairs to check. He feels silly. Ghosts aren't real so he shouldn't even be scared.

"You can't be serious," Cinnamon Rolls says, his frown deepening even more.

Stiles shrugs. "If something breaks this house, I can't sell it," he says. "You can come with me if you want."

Cinnamon Rolls makes no move. Stiles tries to tell himself he's not disappointed. He also tries to tell himself that he had no ulterior motive of _pretending_ to be scared and conveniently leaping into Cinnamon Rolls' clearly muscle-bound arms; Stiles is good at lying, but he's not that good at bullshitting himself.

"Okay," Stiles says, and reaches over to pat Cinnamon Rolls companionably on the arm, because hey, if it turns out Stiles is wrong and ghosts exist and they decide to kill him dead for trying to sell their house, then at least he can say he touched the possible love of his life beforehand.

Except his hand goes _right through Cinnamon Rolls guy's body._

By the time Stiles looks up in shock to see Cinnamon's expression, there's no one there. Stiles is standing in the house, alone.

Ghosts are real.

He's standing in an actual haunted house.

For once in his life, Stiles doesn't have a single word to say.

Maybe one thing.

"Fuck my life," Stiles breathes.

#

Finding out about werewolves had been weird enough. Adjusting to ghosts should be easier, Stiles thinks.

It's not.

Ghosts are real. Ghosts are _real._ And if Cinnamon Rolls guy is a ghost…

…why does _he_ get to haunt somewhere? How comes Stiles' mom didn't get to lounge around as a ghost?

And how come when Stiles finally meets someone he thinks he could have roused some sort of feeling towards, does it turn out that the guy is _dead_?

When he walks back into _Finstock Estates,_ not wanting to face his pathetically small and empty cold apartment, Erica launches up from her desk expectantly. She falters when she sees his face. "Didn't make the sale?"

"Um," Stiles says. "Worse?"

Erica squints. "…don't tell me you burned the house down?"

"You're not going to believe me," Stiles says, dolefully.

"Try me?"

"Promise not to call the men in the white coats?"

Erica gives him a worried look. "I've known you since high school and I haven't _yet._ "

Stiles gives her a dubious look, but she _is_ a werewolf. At least she'll know he's telling the truth. Erica laughs at first, but her face slackens when Stiles mentions Cinnamon Rolls guy. She goes eerily quiet when Stiles finishes his explanation.

Erica's gone a little pale through his story. She shakes her head and digs in her pocket for a moment, pulling out her cellphone and prodding at the screen. "Granger Street is totally completely out of the way," Erica says, in a distracted sort of voice.

"I whined about that last month but you still assigned it to me," Stiles says, scowling at her.

"I meant it was out of the way for _him_ to have been there," Erica says. "Are you sure about the guy's eyebrows?"

"His most defining feature, easily," Stiles says. "A close second to his general rockstar-stroke-Greek-god looks. I bet he has dimples when he smiles."

"Had," Erica says, distracted.

Stiles sighs. "Your apt use of the past tense distresses me."

"Was _this_ the guy?" Erica asks, shoving her phone in Stiles' face. Stiles blinks and backs up a pace, squinting, unable to focus with the screen millimeters in front of his face.

When he does step back, the screen comes into focus. And hot damn, the guy is hella photogenic. "That's him," Stiles says, in wonder.

Erica stares at Stiles like he's lost his mind. It's another of those expressions that Stiles is used to. "His name was Derek Hale," Erica says, her voice soft.

"Derek," Stiles says dreamily, testing it out. He blinks. "As in Cora Hale? Laura Hale?"

"My Alpha's brother," Erica confirms.

"Laura's never mentioned that she has — had — a brother," Stiles says.

"Because she's so talkative around you," Erica deadpans.

Stiles throws her a dirty look before resuming staring at the photo of Derek Hale in his hand, where the distinctive eyebrows are raised high as the attractive man smiles at the camera. Stiles was _totally_ right about the dimples. "She thinks I'm flirting with Cora."

" _Aren't_ you?"

"No, I'm in forever soulbonding love with her coffee," Stiles says.

"Stiles," Erica says, uncharacteristically gentle. "Derek disappeared last year. We were hoping he was alive. Now _you_ have proof that he's dead. You have to tell them."

Stiles blinks.

He blinks again.

"I can't," Stiles says. "I can't tell someone their brother is dead! Cora would never serve me coffee again and _I_ would die. Do we know for sure he's dead?"

"Stiles," Erica says, her eyes shining a little, "you saw the guy's ghost. I think it's pretty sure to say that Derek's dead."

Stiles slumps into his seat and hides his head in his hands. "There has to be another way."

"There's one thing," Erica says, contemplatively.

Stiles squints up at her dubiously. "Call the Ghostbusters?"

"You could ask him how he died," Erica suggests.

#

Cinnamon Rolls guy — Derek — isn't visibly there when Stiles sucks up his courage to go the next day, but when the kitchen door slams a bare inch away from his fingers, he knows Derek is there.

"Derek," Stiles calls out, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet, squinting in different directions like that's going to help. "Derek, c'mon, I know you're dead, I know you're here."

There's silence.

"I'm gonna sell the house," Stiles calls out, sing-song.

One of the drawers in the kitchen opens and drops onto the floor with a loud crack. Crap. Stiles' hand went right through Derek, ergo the ghost is incorporeal, but he still apparently has some movement mojo.

Stiles remembers the chandelier dropping during the Open House, Derek's vocal disproval of the house being sold, and shudders. Maybe he shouldn't piss Derek off.

Except when has Stiles even done anything appropriate with the concept of _should_?

"Have you considered haunting your sisters and not this house? 'cause Cora, man, she's a hottie. I could make sweet, sweet love to her—"

Derek appears in front of him, like Stiles has blinked and missed someone stepping in front of him, except Stiles definitely did not blink.

"—coffee," Stiles finishes, smirking at Derek. "Every single day. How does she make it? What's the secret? Surely you know."

Derek's mouth sets in an unhappy line. "Just get out, Stiles," he says, somewhat sadly. "I won't let you sell this house. It doesn't matter what you have to do. You should just leave."

"I never do what I should," Stiles says. And then: "Wait, you know my name?"

"That Lydia woman was shrieking it every ten minutes the other day," Derek says. "I'm also pretty sure she used it as a curse."

"She wouldn't be the first person to use my name as a curse word," Stiles says. "So here's a question: how did you die?"

"Do you always beat around the bush when you ask your questions?" Derek asks. The sarcasm is beautiful. Stiles could so easily fall in love.

"Sometimes I even vacillate," Stiles says. "Now do you want me to go away or not?"

"Obviously. I just can't answer the question to your satisfaction."

"Can't or won't?"

" _Can't,_ " Derek says, frustrated. He pulls a face. "I didn't even remember Cora's name until you said it. All I know is I'm dead and you can't sell this house. My memories otherwise are… patchy."

"Awesome."

Derek shrugs. "It is what it is. You can't change it."

"You know when people say _can't_ , I hear the sound of a gauntlet being thrown. I accept."

Derek stares. "I'm glad I never met you when I was alive."

"Don't be such a sourghost, you're just jelly I'm so awesome," Stiles says. "Hey, can you walk through walls or are you just limited to disappearing and some of that weird poltergeist, breaking chandeliers and innocent kitchen drawers shtick?"

"I didn't break the chandelier," Derek says and promptly disappears.

Ugh. Annoying.

Stiles wanders around the house for another half an hour calling for Derek without much luck before he gives up. Stiles has been called ridiculous a thousand times before in his life, but Derek probably has him beat on that score.

Talking hasn't worked. Stiles needs to try something else. He's halfway through wondering whether Cora's cousin Malia would lend him her Ouija board when he's struck by another sad thought.

Like how is this even his _life_?

 

#

Training to become a realtor was never high up Stiles' list of preferred career plans. He more sort of _fell_ into it, by accident. Kind of literally. He finished college a semester early and turned up at the local Starbucks to interview for a temporary position to tide him over until Scott finished his exams, because the two of them had been eyeing the empty storefront on Mainstreet that used to be a comic shop with a view to running it together. Except then there was an incident with a chihuahua, a Grande Latte, an overenthusiastic toddler, and Stiles tripping over his own feet— the details even now are hazy, but needless to say, Stiles ended up in the wrong building.

Instead of it just being yet another amusing anecdote in the footnote of Stiles Stilinski's epic clumsiness, Finstock — Stiles' old Lacrosse coach who'd finally tired of being continually around the teenagers he vocally despised so much and took on the family business instead — ended up hiring him for nostalgia's sake. First as an office intern-slash-coffee boy, then for occasional research, like checking the local school rankings and calling the local tax assessor to find out which towns in Beacon County had the lowest property taxes. Even then, Stiles didn't mean to go any further, but then Scott finished college with news: Allison was pregnant. And Scott, in fear for his testicles, was now working for her father. Selling firearms.

Scott. Stiles' best friend. Pacifist Scott. Borderline vegetarian Scott, because the idea of eating a cow made him cry. Selling _guns._ What _even._

Before Stiles knew it, he was at Beacon College two days a week, taking courses on Real Estate Practice and Escrow, and gradually taking on more experience at the office. He'd been _genuinely thrilled_ to sell his first house on Abbey Street a few weeks ago and the commission had been a nice surprise too.  A few more houses like that and Stiles could picture himself still buying the comic shop, maybe getting someone else to run it while he still sells houses.

It's not the life that Stiles pictured, but maybe with some more money coming in, Stiles can make a nice life for himself here, even if he's a little lonely. Oh, he's got Erica and Boyd, Scott and Allison, Isaac and Kira, and they're great, but they're couples. Stiles is growing a little tired of playing seventh wheel, but he guesses he's not _un_ happy.

Except Derek and this damn house on Granger Street is gonna drive him _batty_.

The house _could_ save Finstock's business if it's in financial trouble. Easily. Despite the number of houses on Granger Street, 1042 is practically a mansion, the commission is handsome and Stiles' cut of it if he sells it would be eye-opening: in combination with the money still in his savings from his first sale, he might even have enough to buy the comic shop, if not stock it.

But it's haunted. Actually, genuinely be haunted. By a ghost. By an unfairly attractive ghost that Stiles doesn't know whether he wants to punch in the face or lick from head to ghostly toe.

Stiles comes up with a great potential solution. Selling the house means passing the problem onto someone else. Someone _else_ can tell Cora and Laura Hale that their brother is dead. He just has to do what he's failed to do for the last few weeks: sell the damn house. And there's one angle Stiles hasn't tried.

Derek's definitely a feature of the house, not a bug. Haunted houses had to sell _somewhere_ and that somewhere was possibly the internet… right?

#

Stiles has never been more wrong in his life and from a guy who owns _Catwoman_ on DVD, that's probably saying a lot.

The Craiglist advert Stiles puts together with the knowledge that the house is, yes, definitely haunted, so ghost-enthusiasts _need_ to buy it!!… goes viral within hours.

It should be a great thing. But the forty-nine people who've called him since he posted it either want to know how many corpses are buried under the house (hopefully none!), want proof (yeah, no, Stiles has about zero of that) or want Stiles to know how many licks it takes them to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop (by the way his penis is the Tootsie Pop, _why oh why_ did he let Finstock put a head shot of him on the company website?)

It's frustrating. Stiles apparently has a 100% haunted house and he _can't sell it._

"Well," the Sheriff says, over breakfast the next day as Stiles sobs over the thirteenth voicemail describing what they wanna do to him, "if you had a skunk in a house that was causing a smell, what would you do?"

The Sheriff's been humoring Stiles' delusions since kindergarten, so it's no surprise he's taking the ghost thing in his stride.

"I would cry, slink back home and eat all your bacon," Stiles says, pointing at his plate of bacon crumbs.

"What would you do _next_?" his dad asks, not even looking up from his own bowl of healthy fruit and oatmeal (except for the sad, jealous glances at the fragments of bacon on Stiles' plate.)

"Get animal services, get them to take the skunk out, then steam clean the carpets," Stiles says.

The Sheriff makes a _hmm_ sound.

"I'll call animal services, then," Stiles says, reaching for the phonebook because his cellphone is occupied, this time with someone from _Universal_ studios blathering about how they want his screenplay.

(He saves that message, though. Maybe Isaac can finally hock that ridiculous script he wrote in high school about a werewolf surfing on a minivan.)

#

Of _course_ Stiles doesn't phone animal services. He's not _crazy._

He does call the local vet, because Deaton once helped Scott fight a possessed tree (it's a long story, okay), but he somehow comes away from the call with a subscription to _Veterinarian's Weekly_ for the low-low price of ten bucks a month, and no useful information whatsoever.

So he does the next best thing. And pays for an exorcism kit on ebay while he waits for the local priest to return his call. Father McKinley probably still remembers him from the fifth grade trip to St. Joseph's, though, so Stiles isn't holding his breath on that score.

The ebay kit beats the returned call, even though it ships in from Hong Kong. Stiles would be dubious, but he's getting a little desperate.

The kit seems simple enough. If he goes in at midday, Derek will be at his weakest, so Stiles will be safe. He can set up the circle, light the candle, spread the salt and sage, speak the incantation, and the house should be clean and clear of ghosts. Then Stiles can sell the _un_ haunted house to a regular couple and all will be great and Stiles can finally get a coffee from Cora in celebration.

Uh, except for the snag in the plan that the ghost he's planning to exorcise is apparently Cora's dead brother. Well. If Cora never finds out, she can never be mad at him and she'll not block up his access to her delicious, delicious coffee.

Erica insists that Derek was a cuddly bear of a character, telling Stiles that _anyone_ will confirm that Derek _never_ won a single fight in his life, but Stiles isn't an idiot. He's not gonna go and exorcise a house on his own without _backup._

"Just stay in the car," Stiles eventually has to sigh at Scott.

Scott too quickly slides back into the Jeep, clutching a flashlight even though the sun is high in the sky and squinting at the house.

"You're a werewolf," Stiles hisses. "How can you be scared of ghosts?"

"I met Derek once," Scott says. "He threatened to rip my throat out with his teeth."

"Erica says he's a cuddly bear," Stiles says, blinking at his best friend.

"Erica also thinks _she's_ a nice person _,_ " Scott says.

Stiles squints. Scott has a point.

"I won't be long," Stiles says. "Draw a circle, sing a song, poof. House is exorcised, I can sell it, make a head-spinning amount of money, and this horrific chapter of my life is _over._ "

"I almost do want to come inside," Scott muses. "I bet if I recorded you doing it and put it on YouTube, we could go viral."

Stiles got a used dildo in the work post that morning from the last thing he was involved in that went viral. He grimaces. A _very_ used one. "Just come in and rescue me if I start screaming," Stiles instructs him, and heads off into the house so he doesn't have to hear Scott's excuses.

Stiles has been able to bulldoze through Scott's excuses since they met in the sandbox nearly two decades ago. The fact he doesn't try to this time is nearly as unnerving as the whole _Derek Hale died last year_ thing. He's never loathe to share anything with Scott. Usually he _over_ shares things with Scott, too.

The idea that he's reluctant to share Derek...

Well, as handsome as Derek's ghost is, everyone deserves to be put to rest. Stiles would never be able to face Cora again knowing he'd willfully found her brother's soul wandering the earth and he _hadn't_ done anything about it.

It's good sometimes that Stiles' brain overthinks things, because it's an excellent distraction – he's halfway through setting up the circle of small apparently-blessed stones when Derek's voice filters down from above him.

"What are you doing?" Derek asks.

When Stiles looks up, Derek hasn't even bothered to try and look corporeal. If he has any control over it, that is. Stiles has about a thousand million questions. "Exorcising you," Stiles says. "Unless you, uh—Is that a problem?"

Derek walks forward to examine the pile of objects in Stiles' hand. Stiles nervously watches his feet make contact with the floor, and he walks like he's alive, but he comes to stand too close to Stiles and—yep, Derek's perfect knee is now embedded in Stiles' shoulder. Oh wow, that's weird. Stiles automatically puts up a hand to push him back, and his fingers come into contact with nothing, which is just always going to be so very _weird._ So his vocabulary could do with a little more variety, maybe, but Stiles has a ghost _literally inside him_ and not the way he would have _wanted_ Derek Hale to be inside him, either. He's _allowed_ to be a little distracted.

"I guess it's not a problem," Derek says. "Unless it just gets rid of me."

Stiles frowns, because Derek's words imply he's not the only ghost in the house.

And that's when one of the tables Lydia staged in the dining area comes crashing through the open door, flying straight for Stiles' head.

Way too late, Stiles remembers Derek saying " _She_ doesn't want you to sell the house," but it's _much_ too late to be of any good. Stiles sees Derek staring down at him in concern, and behind Derek's shoulder he can see a faint image of a woman with elbow-length effortlessly-wavy brown hair, a cruel smirk on her beautiful face.

What the fuck is it, Stiles thinks as he passes out, with ghosts being so freaking attractive?

#

When Stiles wakes up, it's to Erica's pissed-off expression.

He groans. Everything hurts. "Did Finstock fire us?" Stiles asks, struggling to be upright.

"What?" Erica blinks. "No, I sold, like, three houses yesterday."

"But you look like—"

"Oh. I'm angry because you went into a haunted house and nearly got killed by a _table,_ " Erica says. As Stiles blinks, the world around Erica comes into focus. White, white and even more white. Oh. The hospital then. "I'm also angry because McCall's been hogging the chair all night and I had to sleep on the uncomfortable chairs outside because you're an inconsiderate douchebag who, oh yeah, _tries to get himself killed by a piece of furniture._ "

"It wasn't the table who tried to kill me. It was the ghost."

"Derek tried to kill you?" Erica blinks. "Actually, yeah. I guess I can see you rubbing him the wrong way."

"Funny, I can perfectly imagine me rubbing him the _right_ way," Stiles says, sad that it's never going to happen. "But no, not Derek. The other ghost."

"Another ghost," Erica says, flatly. "You didn't say there was another ghost."

"I didn't know there was."

"And you didn't ask?" Erica says.

"He pissed me off," Stiles says. "And disappeared. He's not exactly Mr. Talkative." Stiles rubs at his forehead and flails his hand out. There has to be morphine _somewhere._ There is literally no other silver lining to getting knocked out if he doesn't get the floaty drugs afterwards.

"You do realize that Nurse McCall says you don't get any painkillers until you stop pissing me off," Erica says.

"But that means I'll _never have drugs again,_ " Stiles hisses, unimpressed.

"Sounds good to me," Sheriff Stilinski says from the doorway. Stiles risks a glance, but nope, that was a bad idea. Too much light and too much scowling from Erica and his dad. "Kid, when are you gonna stop freaking me out?"

Stiles shrugs, but that hurts too. "Probably when you stop calling me kid all the time."

"So never," the Sheriff sadly concludes.

"And here's the chair thief," Erica says, giving Scott an unimpressed look as the latter follows Sheriff Stilinski into the room.

"We flipped for the chair," Scott protests immediately. "You lost fair and square."

"You said _heads I win, tails you lose,_ " Erica hisses. "I was paralyzed by grief and torment. You _played_ me like a cheap violin."

"I taught him that one," Stiles says, proudly. Scott gives him a goofy, lopsided grin, tinged with a lot of relief.

"I'm glad you didn't die," Scott says. "I need someone in my life to lie and tell me I'm good at Super Smash Bros."

"I got your back, buddy," Stiles says. "Speaking of—have you arrested anyone for my near demise? I feel like someone should have been arrested."

"The table you tripped and hit your head on is in a jail cell as we speak," the Sheriff says, leaning against the wall and eyeballing a bowl of candy on the bedside cabinet belonging to one of Stiles' roommates. Stiles will have to steal the whole thing and down it before his dad can think of doing the same thing. Just to save his father, of course. Not for the delicious mini Oh Henry bars he can see in the mix. Nope, just your regular self-sacrificial good deed.

It's a massive shame — Stiles has always wanted roommates, and here he is, his first roommate situation post-college, and he's potentially pissing one of them off within the first few hours. Oh, well. He's sure everyone has their nightmare roommate stories. His candy thievery is for the greater good.

"I didn't trip and hit my head," Stiles says, frowning. "The table hit _me._ Then the ghosts smiled at me and then I woke up here."

"Ghosts _plural_? Not just Derek?" Erica asks.

"Derek?" Great. Now Mrs. McCall is in the room. Aw, hell, Stiles is going to end up in Psych by the end of the day. He risks a look at her. Maybe by the end of the _hour._

"Derek Hale," Scott says. "He thinks he's been seeing the ghost of Derek Hale."

"I don't _think,_ " Stiles hisses. "I _have._ That and a pretty woman with very hair-shampoo-advert hair. She's the one that threw the table at me."

"A girl ghost threw a table at you," the Sheriff repeats.

Stiles nods. "A woman ghost," he clarifies.

"I should go see if that MRI is gonna be done any time soon," the Sheriff says, arching an eyebrow at Stiles before sidling out of the room.

"Aren't you going to take my statement?" Stiles yells after him. "I nearly died!"

#

Deputy Parrish does come to take his statement, which is much closer to protocol, Stiles guesses.

Unfortunately, he's not exactly a believer in the supernatural, despite being clobbered several times in the _face_ by several supernatural incidents. The guy with no mouth? Surely just a freak genetic accident. The time the banshee girl from Eichen House escaped and started stealing pillows from people who were about to die. The time Kira short-circuited all of Beacon County when she and Isaac first did the horizontal mambo. Nope. Nothing. Parrish did not see the face of the super-hot ghost woman and is therefore not a believer.

Parrish's line of boring, weird questions are never gonna end. Never. Stiles is going to go into a coma of boredom at this rate. He really wants to slam his face into something in frustration, but with a head injury, probably not the best of plans.

At least, Stiles reasons, he has Cora's coffee to look forward to. Not that Scott is bad company, the opposite in fact. But there's only so much he can take of Scott adorably hovering around his bedside with a constipated expression. And Allison is probably beautifully unimpressed at how long Scott's been out of the house. Actually, scratch that, because Erica continues to stalk the hospital too, and Boyd and Allison have probably taken advantage of their spouses absence and are getting all hot and steamy together up on the firing range. (Okay, not the hot and steamy part. Probably. Stiles just has an active imagination, especially with attractive people, and his whole friend group are unreasonably hot. Derek would have fit right in, Stiles thinks sadly.)

Just because he hasn't sold the house shouldn't mean he couldn't have _one_ cup of Cora's coffee, right? Stiles squints at his own brain. It's only a self-imposed law. It's not _his_ fault the house is haunted. Surely just one cup wouldn't be too bad a lapse in self-control..? That line of thought gets him through Parrish's questions, through his doctor's exit-interview, and as soon as Stiles gets discharged, he goes straight to _Cora's Coffee…_

 _…_ only to have to duck when he goes through the door.

Having a table thrown at his head by a ghost has been excellent training. And very beneficial to his continuing health, because he's pretty sure the cup of coffee that Cora threw at his face was scalding hot. He can see steam rising from the puddle of liquid on the floor.

"Hey! Just come out of hospital with a head injury here!" Stiles yelps.

"How could you!" Cora screams at him. "You knew my brother was dead and you didn't tell me straightaway?"

In the corner of the café, Erica sends him a guilty look and hides her face badly in a flimsy menu.

Stiles sadly mourns the loss of the coffee and considers licking it off the floor for a serious second, because from Cora's furious expression, he's probably about to be banned for life from her beautiful, amazing, life-changing coffee. "To be fair," Stiles says, "his dead girlfriend hit me with a table."

"I didn't know he had a girlfriend," Cora yells, "but I like her a lot already!"

"I should probably go, right?" Stiles asks, no one in particular.

Every single patron at _Cora's Coffee!_ nods in unison. Stiles backs away, wondering if _every_ Hale is super crazy. At least that explains why Erica's so desperate not to have to move in with them.

#

Stiles has never had an injury in his life he hasn't poked at. It's true for the gash on his head from the table and it's true of the haunted house. He pokes his head in through the front door warily — Derek's already visible, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the hall.

Derek gives him a wary, unimpressed glance. "Are you _crazy_?"

"I feel like this is a subject we've already covered," Stiles says, slipping fully into the house. "Is your grumpy girlfriend around?"

"She's not my girlfriend," Derek says, automatically.

"Were you alive, that would have cheered me up immensely," Stiles sighs. "Is she around?"

Derek looks up, squinting like he can look through the ceiling. Maybe he can. Stiles wants to know _all_ his ghost skills. Maybe Derek will answer more of his questions now. "I don't think so," Derek says. "Then again, I didn't think she was around when she killed me."

"Huh?" Stiles blinks. "She's the one—"

"She wasn't my girlfriend but we were dating. She invited me over. I didn't know she was a hunter. She put aconite in my dinner."

"Look at you, talking," Stiles says, approvingly.

"She hurt you," Derek says, looking uncomfortable to be saying it. "She's dangerous. She needs to be stopped and—"

"And what?"

"You're, uh—" Derek starts and shoots Stiles a strained look.

"I'm the only person you've talked to since you died," Stiles guesses.

Derek shrugs. "I'm not sure anyone else can even see me."

"We can test that," Stiles says, brightly.

"I don't think we have time," Derek says.

Stiles frowns. "What's that even supposed to mean?"

"It means you need to get rid of her, before she kills someone else," Derek says. "You need to exorcise the house."

Stiles finds himself nodding along, because it had been his plan, but then he's struck by something that isn't heavy, on-loan kitchen furniture. "Hypothetically saying I manage it when I didn't before… won't that get rid of you too?"

Derek looks at Stiles, a lonely expression on his face. "Maybe it's for the best," he says and disappears again, because he's an absolute asshole like that.

Oh. Maybe Stiles shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Huh.

At least Derek gave him more information to work on this time. Whoever killed him lived in the house. Poisoned his dinner. Presumably wouldn't have killed herself at the same time, so something else — someone else, maybe — killed her. Stiles might have no way to find out where Derek's body is… but if the woman's death is on record, maybe the location of her dead body is.

Stiles has seen enough episodes of _Supernatural,_ even though he quit after season 5 and pretends that the later seasons are figments of someone's bad imagination, to know what to do next.

Stiles hoofs it back to the office. Erica pulls out the owner's name and calls him for Stiles (yeah, okay, Stiles needs to work on his phone manner) — her expression when she lowers the phone is priceless.

"Stiles," she says slowly, "what's Allison's surname again?"

Stiles purses his lips. "Allison? Scott's Allison?"

"Scott's Allison," Erica confirms.

"Argent," Stiles says. "Why?"

"Because the woman who rented the house last," Erica says, "was a _Kate_ Argent."

"I," Stiles says, resisting the urge to smack himself in the face with the nearest blunt object, "am not having a good month."

"If you don't sell that house, Biles," Finstock yells as he comes through the front door, breezing past both of them towards his office, "you're not going to have a good _week._ "

Erica and Stiles watch as he slams his office door closed.

"It's always amusing how he thinks a week is longer than a month," Erica says.

"Except for when he's working out our payslips and pays us a week's wage for a month of work."

Erica's mouth curls. "There is that."

#

Allison's eyes narrow when she opens the door. "What do you want?"

Stiles puts a hand on his chest, pretending to be winded. "Hi Stiles! It's nice to see you, Stiles! So nice of you to come all the way out here to see me!"

"Hi Stiles," Allison says, flatly. "It's nice to see you, Stiles. So nice of you to come all the way out here to ask me for a favor that I'm probably not going to like."

Stiles' mouth opens slackly. "I don't know what you mean. I could just be dropping by to say hi."

"With cakes from the patisserie on fourth street in your hand to bribe me with?" Allison asks archly. "My favorite bakery? When you know perfectly well Scott's at work?"

"Fine," Stiles sighs. "I'm coming over to seduce you because I was bored, Scott's at work and I figured you'd be up for a quick bang."

Allison smirks. "With you it _would_ be quick," she jokes. "All right, come in."

"If I knew you were this easy, I'd have tried that as a line _long_ ago," Stiles says, gratefully following her inside Scott and Allison's nice house. Which he automatically starts pricing in his head. Two bedrooms, ensuite bathroom for the main, separate kitchen and dining area, nice area of town, minimal damage on the walls (a crayon sketch by baby Vicky on the sitting room wall)…he could _totally_ get three-fifty for this house on a bad day.

Dammit, when did he start _naturally_ thinking like a realtor? He's only one in _training,_ it shouldn't be seeping into his head this badly. Then again, Finstock probably shouldn't be giving Stiles sole responsibility for houses until he gets his license — Finstock's relationship with should and shouldn't is staggeringly close to Stiles' own interpretation of the words.

"If you'd ever seriously tried a line like that on me," Allison says, "your insides would have been on your outsides before you could blink."

Stiles masquerades a gasp of horror, but catches a glimpse of the cabinet with Allison and Scott's sport trophies in it (well, Scott has two small lacrosse trophies that are the real-life equivalent of a gold tumblr "you tried!" star, and Allison won all the rest, including the Olympic medals on display.) He thinks back to his own collection of sports awards - a certificate for swimming 50 metres and a fake gold medal from a fifth grade summer camp and has to concede the point. If he'd _ever_ seriously hit on Allison, she'd have handed his ass back to him on a plate.

Allison's not his type though, thankfully. Back in high school his type was redhead and unapproachable. His type _now_ is apparently tall, handsome and dead.

"So you're not going to like the favor I'm going to ask you," Stiles says as he sits down, gratefully accepting the can of soda Allison throws him. She takes the cake box from him and sits opposite him.

"Shocker," Allison says, rolling her eyes.

"I need to know about your aunt."

Allison frowns. "My aunt Kate?"

"More specifically…" Stiles wrinkles his nose regretfully, "where she's buried?"

The expression Allison gives him is worse than the one when Stiles convinced Scott that it was okay to use her razor to shave his face.

Apparently she'd really _liked_ that caterpillar of hair on Scott's face.

Allison stares at him for a long moment, mouth set in a line, before she gets up.

"Oh god, if you're going for a weapon, can you at least stab me somewhere there isn't a major organ?" Stiles says. "I've already been in hospital once this month."

"I know," Allison calls from out in the hallway, "I lost my husband for a _week_ from that. You two are worryingly codependent."

"Your dead aunt hit me with a table, if that helps," Stiles yells back.

"That does help, actually," Allison says, her voice growing louder — she's coming back into the room. She dumps something into Stiles' hands. "Careful, don't drop this."

"What the hell is _this_?" Stiles asks, squinting at the object in his hands.

Allison sits down again in the seat opposite Stiles before demurely taking out one of the cakes that Stiles brought as a bribe. "That's her," she says. "Say hello to my dead aunt Kate."

#

Stiles buckles the urn into the passenger seat and ends up driving back to his apartment block, but he stays sitting in his Jeep, staring up at the unfriendly-looking building. The rent in this area of town is super cheap and the security in the building is adequate. It could be worse. But Stiles finds himself more reluctant to go back into that empty apartment than he is to go back to the Granger street house. He sighs, resting his head on the steering wheel.

Professionally, his life is going okay, even if it's not what he imagined it to be.

Personally, his life is nonexistent.

That's probably why he's been so okay taking on all the extra study when Finstock offered it. Being busy all the time cuts out his thinking time. Stops him from sitting still and noticing that he doesn't really have a _life._

If he goes back into that apartment… Stiles will be the one doing the haunting.

Thankfully his cellphone gives him an alternative, when it rings and he picks it up to Father McKinley _finally_ returning his call.

He doesn't hang up on Stiles, not even when Stiles, stuttering, explains his problem.

"Well," Father McKinley says, "I can perform a cleansing ceremony on the house. Pray the ghosts out of it, per se."

Stiles' voice hitches on the first word when he says, "Both of them?"

"Well, yes. Both spirits deserve to move on, Mr. Stilinski. All souls deserve peace."

Stiles thinks of Derek disappearing. His chest hurts a little.

A lot. It hurts a lot.

He looks over at Kate Argent's ashes contemplatively.

"Thanks for calling," Stiles says. "I'll call you back."

Father McKinley squawks something and Stiles hangs up on whatever it is he's saying.

He's got a plan.

It's not a great plan, but his plans rarely are.

#

There's a cup of _Cora's Coffee!_ sitting on Stiles' desk on Monday morning.

"What's this?" Stiles says, sidling into his seat and sniffing in its sweet nectar. "Oh, sweet liquidy goodness, I've _missed_ you," he coos to the drink. He looks over to Erica as he boots up the computer to check his work emails. He's maybe got a lead on a couple of houses out near the preserve, so he's hopeful. "Does Cora know you're betraying her right now?"

"I've always wanted to be a drug pusher," Erica says. "Now you'll be indebted to my every whim."

Stiles hums appreciatively. There would be worse people in Beacon Hills to be enslaved to forever.

"So," Erica says, coming over to perch on the side of his desk. "Spill. How did you sell the unsellable house?"

"I found a buyer," Stiles says, sipping at the coffee.

Erica glares, unamused.

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Fine. _I_ bought the haunted house."

Erica's eyebrows lurch to her hairline. "What?"

"Well, I talked the owner into dropping the price because of the added ghostly house guests, and went to the bank. Turns out the manager who's served me since I was a kid is Richard Hale."

"Laura's dad," Erica says.

"Laura's dad," Stiles confirms. "When he heard that I wanted a mortgage so I could live with his son…" He shrugs. "My pathetic savings were enough for a deposit and it turns out, the mortgage is about the same as the rent on my sad little apartment."

Erica blinks several times. "But what about—?"

"Well, obviously Derek wasn't thrilled at first," Stiles says, shrugging. "But I got Lydia to take back all her furniture, so Kate's got nothing to throw at me but a bunch of pillows I bought to sleep on. Turns out even I can't be killed by pillows."

Erica stares. "You're crazy," she breathes.

"Something Derek thankfully already knows." Stiles shakes his head fondly. "We've covered it at least twice."

"But—"

"I've always wanted roommates," Stiles says.

"Even one that wants to kill you, though?"

Stiles shrugs, contemplatively sips at his coffee. "No situation's perfect."

#

"This isn't normal," Derek says. He's graduated from standing in the hall to managing to move around the sitting room, so Stiles set up his bed in there — just a mattress and a massive load of pillows.

Right now, Derek's lying on the mattress next to Stiles. Well. Derek's hovering above it. It's been a trial-and-error process. Much like their entire relationship so far.

"Who likes normal?" Stiles asks. "Normal's overrated. Laura's coming for dinner tomorrow."

"Dinner?" Derek stares blankly at the ceiling, assimilating the reminder that he has another sister. They've discovered his memories are mostly still there, but they need accessing; words can trigger them and Stiles is kind of a master of the talking thing. Stiles is gradually trying to coax memories of Derek's last days, because if they can find Derek's corpse, Laura's uncle thinks he's found a ritual that might be able to bring Derek back to life.

It would be nice to have him alive, Stiles thinks, but if things have to stay like this, he's actually okay. Besides, where are they gonna find a banshee in Beacon Hills? The closest Stiles has ever come to one in recent times, after Meredith was shipped to the other side of the country, was the way Lydia Whittemore shrieked at him when she came to retrieve her furniture and found an imprint of his forehead in the table.

Yeah, it's gonna take a long time to find a banshee. But Stiles is okay with that.

"I know you can't eat," Stiles says, "but we still need to."

"I was just wondering what Kate would do with cutlery and plates," Derek says.

Oh, Kate. Who's less of a bother since Stiles threatened to mix her ashes into a delightful array of things. Ice cubes. Jello shots. The wet concrete down at the high school where they're building a new toilet block.

"Laura's bringing soft food," Stiles tells Derek. "Marshmallows. Finger sandwiches."

"I _hate_ marshmallows," Derek says, frowning.

"Well, it's a good thing you're dead and can't eat, then."

Derek glares. "I don't understand how someone with your non-existent levels of empathy ever manages to sell anything, let alone houses."

"Hey," Stiles says, swiping a pillow at Derek's face and hitting — oh yeah, thin air. "I'm _personable._ I'm loquacious. I'm—"

"Stubborn," Derek interjects.

"Damn skippy," Stiles agrees.

"Just how did you get into it in the first place?" Derek's frown softens into something more of a softer line, something more open and curious.

"I sort of fell into it," Stiles says. Derek grunts, quietly amused by it.

"You do fall into a lot of things," Derek says.

"You're gonna have to get used to it," Stiles says.

Derek doesn't look at him, but he does semi-smile at the ceiling as he mumbles, "I plan to," and he doesn't disappear like the first few times he might have muttered something agreeable about Stiles sticking around.

Stiles smiles at him. It's not quite Derek's forever undying love, but it's _nice_ to come home to someone interested in his life. It's nice to come home to someone.

It's nice to come _home._

Derek's fond expression fades as _something_ crashes upstairs.

Stiles winces. He _knew_ the master bedroom door hinges should have been tighter, but, well…

Everyone has their nightmare roommate story. Stiles' is just a little more creative than most, that's all.


End file.
